The Commission approved the Strategy for the Development of fish-farming technology to 2020. The document will be approved by an order from the Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo). Meeting participants also considered issues of lending to companies in the sector and decided to form a working group within the Government Commission on lending to fish-farming companies.
In his opening remarks at the Commission's session, First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said:
The priorities and long-term goals of the industry's development have been defined by the government in the Strategy for the Development of Fisheries. The next step in the general system of government measures is defining the main vectors for the development of fish-farming technology and putting the sector on an innovative path of development.
"It's obvious that reaching this goal will require the formation of new approaches to increase the effectiveness of research and development being conducted at all stages of production - from forecasting the status of the raw materials base to the development and introduction of modern fish processing technology.
In the late 1990s, federal funding for such research was reduced for economic reasons. The lack of funding was compensated for by the utilisation of bio-resources procured while conducting research. This distracted research institutes from targets set by the government. Research was cut in such sectors as field equipment and development of new fishing gear, fish processing technology, replenishment of fish reserves, information support for the industry, as well as education and training of staff.
The situation with federal funding has now changed drastically. This year, the government has allocated around 3.7 billion roubles for fish-farming research, which is four times more than in previous years. The allocated federal funds must be used efficiently for funding priority research vectors.
The scientific research institutes are currently incorporated as state unitary enterprises. According to their charters, their main purpose is profit-making; this circumstance does not facilitate government work on scientific support for the industry.
The government has repeatedly issued directives to transform them into federal state enterprises, but this work has been delayed.
I ask commission members to take an active part in discussing the Strategy and rate its relevance to the industry's key goal of transition to innovative development.
Upgrading and modernising the industry's key assets and forming a sufficient amount of working capital for companies is impossible without additional borrowing. As shown by last year's experience, this mechanism is not yet being used in full measure.
The amount of loans granted in 2009 to fish-farming companies was around 13 billion roubles given a calculated requirement for loan resources in the amount of 50 billion roubles.
Since last year, the government has been subsidising interest rates on investment and short-term loans at two-thirds of the refinancing rate. More than one billion roubles have been allocated from the federal budget for these purposes. But this state support measure is yet unpopular among fishermen.
Today, we will look at the reasons for this. Let's get down to work.